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Talk:Closer to Free (1)/@comment-3099115-20120616082617/@comment-138263-20120803052404
Praying, obeying, going to church and baptism DO NOT make you a Christian. They are things you do because you already are a Christian. A Christian is a person who has asked for the transaction that is a new birth. Jesus told Nicodemus how to go to Heaven. "A man shall not go to Heaven unless he is born again." Nicodemus asked how a man can reenter his mother's womb. Jesus said Nicodemus refers to a birth by the flesh, but Jesus referred to a birth by the Holy Spirit (the third person of God). 1 - confess to God you are a sinner. 2 - confess you are repenting of those sins - literally, turning from them, willing and desiring to put behind you all sins, starting with the ones you know you're doing like lying, stealing, thinking murderously of someone, sexual immorality including homosexuality. You wish to stop all sins and are willing to make the effort and not justify any of them. 3 - you profess belief that Jesus is the son of God, died to atone for sin, and rose again to life. 4 - you accept Jesus' atonement for you sins to wash you clean. 5 - you ask for the Holy Spirit to dwell in you to be your guide. Having done this, in Heaven, a transaction is made that you are then born anew by the Holy Spirit. Often, on doing this, people desire to undergo baptism which is symbolic burial and rising again, as a testimony of what has already happened. A reborn person (other expressions of the same event are "born again", "born anew by the Holy Spirit", "saved", "received/accepted salvation") then is enabled to see and understand God's word more clearly while reading the Bible. Such persons also should pray, should attend church, should strive to obey God's word. Such person are NOT PERFECT! - but a Christian is willing to hear where he or she is falling short and have a loving willingness to acknowledge the sin we all still have in our lives and attempt to change it. I had the same experience. I was still buying lottery tickets every week - I realized I shouldn't and I stopped. (By my belief, it's wrong, but you will have to assess for yourself if you are taking something from someone else or not.) I still had to adjust my work life and my home life to let people see Christ in my way of living. A friend of mine told me I can't call someone else a "fool"or an "idiot", and so I had to work on that and it's still a struggle. But in some areas, I have made progress. When I see two men kiss because they're homosexual, I'm not angry. My heart is torn in grief for their hearts. When the minister at my former church, a homosexual, called in to pay his phone bill, I treated him professionally, processed his payment, asked if I could do anything else for him for his account, and bid him goodbye when the call was done, but in my heart, I grieved for him. There is no anger, no hatred, no judgement, just grief and angst over his rebellion against God. If I was not a Christian, and simply thought I could be Christian simply by doggedly obeying the Bible, I probably would have rejected that man and been less civil to him. The Holy Spirit is my guide and my mentor and shows me the way, which I then try to follow.